However you view the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ of historical events, to whichever side you ascribe ‘civilization’ or ‘barbarity’ (see Ruslan Balbek’s quote to Russian media: ‘[the oath] confirms the civilised route that Crimean Tatars along with all residents of the peninsula, the Kuban, Taman, and the Azov region took nearly 300 years ago”), it does seem absolutely extraordinary for representatives of a nation which, from being independent majority rulers of Crimea in 1783, has shrunk under Russian and Soviet rule to a current minority of less than 300,000 recent returnees trying to rebuild their lives and language from scratch, to not only want to put up such a monument, but to ask for permission from Russia to do so.

Extraordinary is not quite the word.

A pre-2014 monument to Haci Geray Han, who ruled Crimea as an independent Crimean Tatar state in the 15th century. Stary Krym, Crimea

A story: one day in Crimea in 2016 I got into an almost argument with a Crimean Tatar woman who said – a very common thing to hear from Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians – that “Russians have always been slaves and serfs, they don’t know how to be free”.

“Russians came and took our houses and got up on their hind legs and danced for the Soviet authorities to show how happy they were,” she said. She repeated a biblical quote used by a Crimean Tatar writer in one of his books: ‘Do to others as you would have done to you’ – meaning it to reflect on those Russians who moved into Crimean Tatar houses left empty when the Crimean Tatars were deported by the Soviets for alleged treason in 1944.

I told her the story (which I retold in Dream Land) of the Crimean Tatar who came back in the 1990s to find his old home taken by Russians, only to realise that in fact his own family had only begun to live there in the 1920s; they took the empty house themselves when the previous owner was sent to Siberia or executed.

The woman thought I was quoting a story told by prejudiced Russians. I told her that I had heard it from a Crimean Tatar. She said “Well if it did happen those people weren’t real Crimean Tatars. They were the ones who went over to Communism, who let themselves become like slaves.”

I quoted the bible back at her: ‘let those without sin cast the first stone.’

She said “Why are we talking about sin, when a whole nation was deported in an act of genocide?”

I had no answer, and didn’t know why I was arguing with her anyway; probably because I had failed to argue with the Russians who told me earlier that day and every day that all Crimean Tatars are traitors. Probably because I was so sick of the anger and stereotyping and racial discrimination which is Crimea these days.

Later I went to visit Crimean Tatar friends, and we tried to talk about peaceful friend and family matters until one of them – let’s call him Ayder – suddenly burst out: “I just can’t stand it! Sorry, but I have to share how I’m feeling, I can’t keep it in. You’ve seen it, right? These people! This dignified, respected, grown man, begging the tsar for mercy for Sentsov.”

Putin responds that the court sentenced Sentsov to twenty years and therefore he can do nothing.

Sokurov: “In a Russian, in a good Christian fashion, mercy is above justice. I beg you. Mercy is above justice. Please.”

Once again, extraordinary is not quite the word.

A picture of Nikolai II, last emperor of Russia, in a Crimean monastery, 2016.

Somehow most Crimean Tatars, like my friend Ayder, still have the idea that a government should be elected by its citizens to serve them, and is itself governed by a system of justice, rule of law, and a social contract. Recent elections in Ukraine, I would say, show that most Ukrainians have the same idea. And of course the reality disappoints them. But in Russia, well-known public figures beg their country’s leader to intervene in a case of obvious miscarriage of justice, ordered from the very top, by placing mercy above justice. “These people will always be serfs,” Ayder ranted. “They don’t know how to be free.”

I haven’t asked Ayder what he thinks about Kyrym’s appeal to the authorities to allow them to erect a monument commemorating his people’s sworn fealty to the Russian empire. Kyrym prefaces the request thus: “bearing in mind that representatives of the Crimean Tatar people, on an equal level with other national minorities, made a worthy contribution to the historical chronicle of Russia…”. The same document also requests that Crimean authorities accept 1000 candidates from Kyrym to the ruling ‘United Russia’ party, and that Crimean Tatar language get some state support.

In response to the request for the monument, someone posted online the Crimean Tatar national anthem, Ant Etkenmen. The verses were written by Noman Çelebicihan, leader of the short-lived Crimean Tatar national republic. He was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

I’ve pledged to give my life for my nationWhat’s death to me, if I can’t dry my people’s tears?What’s life to me, even a thousand years as king? Still one day I will answer only to the grave